Of Barclays Zimbabwe  and “those Malawians”

However, Barclays Plc is leaving Africa and is looking for the fastest, most profitable exists for itself.

 It had to sift through nearly two dozen bidders, including NSSA, whose chairman called the failure to sell to a local management consortium “a shame”.

This is the same NSSA that failed to run Capital Bank!

It is not like Zimbabwe has any investment grade status in global markets, or that Barclays Plc would have received proceeds quickly from a sale to a Zimbabwean-based investor.

Besides, why should a buyer be forced on Barclays?

The entire point of investment is to ultimately sell to whoever gives you the best deal.

Forcing Barclays to pick a buyer was going to send the message to other investors that, in Zimbabwe, you are not allowed to freely choose who to do business with.

Thankfully, central bank chief John Mangudya stated that “we don’t interfere in the sale of shares by shareholders”.

There is a lot about the Barclays-FMB deal to worry about, as with every acquisition; how FMB intends to position the bank, jobs, the meshing of vastly different corporate cultures, management changes that look inevitable after local executives resisted the sale, and FMB shareholders’ poor record with the likes of Crane Bank in Uganda.

There is also the matter of Zimbabwe not being a happy stomping yard for many pan-African bank investors, from AfrAsia to Atlas Mara.

And yet, with all this on the table, the best we could muster was that “our” bank was being sold to “those Malawians”?

By all means, question FMB as an investor.

Just don’t question where the money is from.

Capital is moving around the world, fast and free.

Keep up; your old hang-ups are slowing you down.-The Source

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